30 March 2010 01:12

The 22 year-old picked up a leg injury during Saturday's 1-1 draw with Birmingham, which left Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger sweating over the midfielder's fitness for tomorrow's meeting with the Spanish and European Champions.

Fabregas is desperate to play against the team with whom he spent six years before moving to London but he may now miss out after he failed to appear alongside his team-mates at London Colney this morning.

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Wenger had expressed confidence Fabregas would recover sufficiently following intensive treatment on the injury but his non-appearance at training hints that all is not well with the Spain international.

Emmanuel Eboué could come into the Arsenal side to stiffen a midfield that will be required to help out the defence against the devastating Lionel Messi and former Arsenal great Thierry Henry.

Barcelona will be without midfielder Andres Iniesta because of injury but defenders Eric Abidal and Gerard Pique should have recovered from injury to play.